Calls for Papers

CfP: Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction

The Eaton Journal of Archival Research in Science Fiction is a peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal hosted by the University of California at Riverside, affiliated with the UCR Library’s Eaton Collection of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Graduate student editors run the Eaton Journal, with scholarly review provided by an interdisciplinary executive board made up of SF scholars, research librarians, and archivists.

The Eaton Journal creates a space for science fiction scholars to share their findings and their experiences within the several archives dedicated to science fiction found throughout the world. The Eaton Journal is also the only journal dedicated to providing a place for archival librarians to discuss the challenges of managing significant science fiction collections and to share their best practices for facilitating as well as conducting archival research in SF.

The Eaton Journal seeks articles that fall under one of three categories:

Scholarly Articles with a significant research component: These articles are not simply notes and speculations regarding materials in an archive but rather use archival materials to build critical arguments that go beyond the textual and theoretical claims of conventional literary research. While these articles must still be textually and theoretically sound, we provide a venue for research that makes archival evidence its primary focus.

Methods and Transformations Articles: This is a space for articles that seek to expand the bounds of the SF archive, exploring new mediums, materials, or discourses as sites for speculative fiction scholarship. These articles generally seek to retheorize, redefine, and/or reframe the SF archive. Such articles may look to understudied archives (music, fan work, internet sites, etc.), and underserved communities within science fiction (drawing on gender, race, and sexuality studies), or may focus on SF performances, practices, and participatory events that challenge traditional archival methods.

Articles spotlighting neglected authors, emerging archives, and other research opportunities: The third type of article featured in the journal is that which identifies newly discovered or undeveloped archival resources, or points to authors whose archival traces offer particularly rich opportunities for scholarship. Spotlights can include, but are not limited to, interviews, editorials, transcripts of roundtable discussions and multimedia and creative works.